Zephyr’s words came back to me.
Be true to yourself.
Rachel had asked me which Jace was the real one.
I understood what I had to do.
Since I’d healed my core, I’d thought of the dark urge, my Eclipse nature, as something outside of me. It had been a force that pushed me to do things I hated. It wanted me to become a monster.
I’d fought it every step of the way. That had been my mistake.
“I’m sorry,” I said, honestly. “I wish this could’ve ended a different way.”
My core ached from the abuse I’d heaped on it. I’d cycled more jinsei through it in one day than I had in a year. It was ragged and beaten, and I was about to beat it even harder.
Everything I’d learned since returning from the Five Dragon Challenge clawed up from my memories.
Song’s enhanced meditation techniques.
The true power of the Borrowed Core.
The unity of core, aura, and blade.
What I really was.
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.” First stared at me with awe in her eyes. “You can’t—”
“I will,” I said.
I cycled my breath one last time.
Jinsei flooded me. It carried dark aspects along with it that I didn’t bother to purge. There was no need. My core was my aura was my blade was my body. The separations I’d been taught were lies that meant nothing to me. I was not an Empyreal or an Eclipse Warrior. I was both, and neither.
I was different.
My Eclipse nature shrieked as it merged with my thoughts, where it belonged. It had never been a separate thing. Its darkness was mine, and I had to accept that truth to reach my full potential.
The Lost rushed toward me when they saw what was coming. They’d imagined I was the start of a new phase for them.
Instead, I was their end.
The beginning of a new age.
“Stop him!” First shrieked.
My aura blazed like a dark sun. For one perfect moment, I saw the Eclipse Warrior half of my soul and the Locust Court half. They fit together, but they were still two pieces only pretending to be whole.
“It’s over.” I raised my hand and willed the halves to fuse in perfect harmony.
The veil around my core shattered.
And I was born anew.
My ties to the Lost and the hungry spirits empowered me in ways they could never have anticipated. Here, in a world made of nothing but jinsei and tortured, shifting aspects, I was more powerful than all of them combined. The sacred energy flooded into my core, pushing it to its limits and beyond.
And the spirits of the Locust Court unraveled as I consumed their power.
The Lost screamed and fell to their knees as I drained their cores.
And then, when I thought I couldn’t absorb any more jinsei, my core advanced in a burst of ecstatic agony.
But even an adept core couldn’t hold all the spiritual power I’d have to drain to kill my enemies.
Fortunately, I now knew I didn’t have to.
The Borrowed Core technique speared into Lost and hungry spirits alike. I drained them in an instant and let the jinsei flow into my core and back out again. I no longer had to cycle power. I was an open conduit, and it flowed through me like a raging river. My enemies fell, their bodies disintegrating as I drained their life away. I’d never have been able to do that on Earth, where the laws of reality were stronger and more difficult to bend. There, though, beyond the Far Horizon in a world of madness, my power was absolute.
The air was hazy with the sacred energy that poured out of me. It shimmered like a mirage and burned away like morning mist. My enemies vanished with it until only one remained.
First lay on the ground, her body twisted in on itself. She raised one hand toward me, eyes pleading.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” she whispered. “I loved you, Jace. You were mine before you were born. Tell Eve your mother sends her love.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“Something’s coming.” First’s voice had faded away to almost nothing. “Something worse. Watch the Design, Jace. Watch—”
First’s fingernails peeled back and floated away, feathers on the wind. Her skin unraveled down the length of her arm in alabaster ribbons. Blood spilled from her wound, then transformed into black sand that vanished before it hit the ground.
I sagged to my knees and let the tears come.
The Plan
THE PORTAL DEFENSE Force dragged me out of the Locust Court’s dying kingdom before it could completely come apart. My friends must have sent them to find me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be found, but it was easier to go along with them than to fight.
I was so tired.
“Hands up,” one of them barked. He held a strange gun with glowing crystals rotating around its barrel. At least it wasn’t aimed at me. “Raise your hands. We have to be sure.”
I was far too tired and shellshocked to do anything other than what I was told. I held my hands in the air and waited while a pair of white-uniformed guardians seized my arms and wrenched them behind me. I didn’t even fight when they slapped handcuffs on me.
It would be stupid to blame them for their caution. There’d been a horrible attack on the five sacred sages, not to mention the clan elders who’d come to view the trial. For all they knew, I was one of the terrorists.
While they secured me, their companions aligned a strange machine with the gate. It reminded me of a telescope, though its long barrel was composed entirely of copper, and it sat atop an enormous faceted gemstone that glowed with jinsei.
“Prepared to fire,” a woman next to the device said. “In three...”
I let the guardians guide me away from the portal. It was a relief to let someone else help support me, for once.
“Two.”
The PDF troopers marched me toward another portal and into the courtroom. The bodies were gone, though bloodstains and
